When it comes to movies based on video games, there are
certain expectations. Generally, it’s important to give the audience some frame
of reference, including familiar characters and their main conflict. When I
heard Warcraft was in the works, a
film based on one of the most popular MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online
role-playing game, for the uninitiated) World of Warcraft, I was skeptical that
producers would be able to pull off a coherent story with sympathetic, familiar
characters. One of the tenets of a successful MMORPG is the aspect of organic,
collective, self-creation; users building their own characters drawn from
templates and a limited list of proscribed attributes set forth by the game’s
programming. Warcraft attempts to
build an entire open-play world into one coherent film narrative. Does it
succeed?

Having never played the game, I did a little research to see
what aspects survived the game-to-film adaptation.

The basics involve the Orc world of Draenor and the human
kingdoms of Aseroth. The Orcs (huge, tusked, green humanoids) are led by the
sorcerer king Gul’dan (Daniel Wu), who sacrifices lesser beings’ souls to open
a mystic portal to Azeroth, since the Draenor has become desolate. Durotan
(Toby Kebbell) is chieftain of the Frostwolf Clan and takes his pregnant wife
Draka (Anna Galvin) along when he passes through the portal (she gives birth to
a bouncing baby orc shortly after). Meanwhile in Azeroth, the humans learn
about the orcs and their king Llane (Dominic Cooper) who orders his trusted
knight and brother-in-law Lothar (Travis Fimmel) to strike and out and do battle with the
intruders. He also summons the kingdom’s “guardian” Medivh (Ben Foster) to use
his magic against the orcs. Lothar brings along an apprentice “mage” (magician)
named Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer). As the
humans are getting their butts kicked by the larger orcs, a beautiful
half-breed orc/human slave named Garona (Paula Patton) is freed by Durotan and
is captured by Lothar’s troops.

There is a lot more story to explain here, but suffice to
say that some of the orcs are not thrilled with the invasion idea, leading to
internal strife among their leaders as the humans face seemingly insurmountable
odds to defeat the powerful invaders. Alliances must be forged and sacrifices
made to thwart the complete destruction of Azeroth.

Warcraft is an odd
film, with a few glaring obstacles that keep it from being the epic it aspires
to. I found myself completely lost on all the orc/human fantasy world minutiae,
and confused about basic aspects of the plot. It’s a problem of context, and constructing
a linear tale from a collective experience has some obvious problems. Deriving
a story from a world created by masses of video game players is a Herculean
task, to say the least, and despite several expository conversations among the
main characters, I can’t say I understand the story, nor do I have complete
sympathy for the main characters, many of which are killed off. It’s like a Shakespearean
tragedy void of the clever dialogue, thrown into the middle of a Hobbit movie.

Speaking of the violence in Warcraft, it’s a little on the graphic side, as people and orcs are
killed by some very explicit means. It could have garnered an R rating quite
easily.

Still, I was slightly more impressed with Warcraft than I thought I would be.
Even with the confusing story and strange motivations, the visual effects and
computerized characterizations of the orcs are impressive. The moments when the
orcs are interacting with each other seem flawlessly lifelike, but during heavy
action battle scenes, the CGI is much more conspicuous.